Is 'parole' a despicable idea?

[Pengwuino]

If anyone has been following that girl who was murdered in Florida... well the guy who confessed to the killing was... yes, a registered sex offender on parole.

My father has always thought that the parole system in this country is the most disgusting thing imaginable. Someone my aunt know is in jail because he shot at someone trying to steal his car on his own property. This ******* was convicted of rape and other violent crimes and was let out on parole. Does anyone else get sick to their stomach thinking about this kinda crap?

 

[1123581321]

If anyone has been following that girl who was murdered in Florida... well the guy who confessed to the killing was... yes, a registered sex offender on parole.

My father has always thought that the parole system in this country is the most disgusting thing imaginable. Someone my aunt know is in jail because he shot at someone trying to steal his car on his own property. This ******* was convicted of rape and other violent crimes and was let out on parole. Does anyone else get sick to their stomach thinking about this kinda crap?

I think it would be a lot better to execute sexual offenders on the spot, or just let them into general population, someone will kill them there, because they hate people who kill kids. And, if people shoot people who try to steal their car should be thanked for saving uncle sam some money. What Bull i say. Also, anyone who commits murder should be killed in exactly the same way they killed, its only fair. If you make a smiley face on someones neck from ear to ear with a knife, than its only fair that's what happens to you. If only i was in a possition of power .

Fibonacci

 

[BobG]

In general, it's not a winning formula for influencing behavior outside of prison. It only serves as an incentive for better behavior inside of prison.

Is it a bad idea? Here's some http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf on convicts released in 1994 and what happened to them in the years after their release.

On average, convicted prisoners serve about 35% of their prison sentence before being paroled.

I think the seriousness of the crime a person was convicted for and the impact of a person's possible future crimes may influence how thoroughly prisoners are screened before being released early. Criminals convicted of propery offenses (robbery, car theft, etc) have an extremely high likelihood of being charged for another criminal offense within 3 years (around 75%). Criminals convicted of violent crimes have around a 60% likelihood of being charged with a crime within 3 years, but that includes any crime - not the likelihood of being charged with another violent crime.

Violent criminals are much more likely to commit another violent crime than someone who has never been arrested for a violent crime, but it's not as high a rate as one might expect. Of released homicide convicts, 13% percent were rearrested for a drug offense, 10.8% for a property crime, and 1.2% for another homicide (that still makes them much more likely to commit another murder than someone whose only prior offenses have been for drugs or property crimes). Rapists are the most likely to commit the same violent crime again (2.5% are rearrested for rape within 3 years, making them a little over 4 times more likely to commit a rape than a released convict with no prior record of rape).

For the most part, increasing sentence length and decreasing the chances of parole increases the amount of time society is protected from released convicts. The likelihood of being rearrested doesn't make a significant drop until you reach sentences longer than 5 years. But you also cross a line from property offenses to more serious, violent crimes. It's hard to say the reduction is due to the longer amount of time spent in prison or due to differences in the categories of the crimes.

I'm not sure the idea of parole is bad in general, but there is one thing, for sure. A little common sense does need to be applied when dealing with convicts with multiple convictions - both in the sentence length and in parole decisions. Based on the number of prior convictions, the likelihood of committing another crime within the first year of release is:

# of priors - rearrested w/i 1 year - rearrested w/i 3 years
1 - 21% - 41%
2 - 26% - 47%
3 - 32% - 55%
4 - 35% - 60%
5 - 40% - 64%
6 - 43% - 67%
(7-10) - 45% - 70%
(11-15) - 54% - 79%
(16 up) - 61% - 82%

You probably think including the convicts with 16+ prior convictions is a little over top, considering the likelihood of that a person could be convicted of 16 or more offenses in a lifetime, but ... percentage of releasees and number of priors:

1st offense: 6.9% of releasees.
2nd: 7.4%
3rd: 7.8%
4th: 7.7%
5th: 7.8%
6th: 7.4%
(7-10): 20.9%
(11-15): 16.2%
(16 +): 18.0%

Thirty-four percent of released convicts had more than 10 convictions! Those convicts are being released on vacation, not being released to reform their lives!

As a side note, since we were discussing the problem of what to do with those convicted of DUI's: Of prisoners released from prison for drunk driving, 51.7% wind up rearrested again within 3 years, with about 17% winding up back in prison. That's lower than other types of crimes, but still a pretty scary statistic. I don't want to drift off into a completely new topic, but the reconviction rate has been rising. The crack down on drunk driving has had a big impact on social drinking behavior, reducing the number of first time/second time offenders, but hasn't had much affect on the chronic offenders.

 

[Pengwuino]

I should have made myself clearer. Parole is a good idea for a lot of crimes committed after a while like theft or fraud or other crimes where there's no physical injury to a person or no 'scare' to an individual (no armed robbery). It helps the prison system by taking the load off a little. Plus those crimes normally arent don't by people whos next crimes going to be much worse. Releaseing rapists and (incredibly) murderers and sex offenders before their time is the really horrible part though. Because hey, let's say some guy whos arrested for a bunch of auto thefts is caught and put on parole. If i have to put up with 1 guy going around stealing cars when the alternative is 1 guy being released who has a few rape convictions under his belt, ill take my chances with the guy who steals cars